Your Creation • Zarry

66. Open

January 2018

I rang in the New Year with Camille and my family, having enjoyed the holidays quite a bit and I started to feel like I was having some kind of epiphany. It had a lot to do with being around family and friends, the people who helped me stay grounded and it reminded me of other important things, but also had a lot to do with Camille.

She and I spent a lot of time talking about me and some things that I hadn't told many other people, namely my sexual awakening. She was so interested in knowing where it came from, how it started, and I told her the story about that sweet dream I once had that ended up not being a dream and how me and "the guy that I love" have been in this secret, complicated relationship on and off for several years and she still never asked me who it was.

Camille also pointed something out to me, and that was the energy in the rooms that I was playing on tour. She noticed that I was encouraging everyone to be themselves and people were embracing it, but she asked me why I wasn't doing the same and I couldn't stop thinking about what she said. A few days into the new year I called up Zayn, eager to hear his voice and talk to him.

"Hey you," he answered.

"Hey. What's going on?"

"Not a whole lot just working on some stuff for the album."

"Oh yeah? What kind of stuff?"

"Well I can't tell you that," he replied, chuckling. "It's conceptual. I think you'll like it. How are you?"

"I'm good. I, uh, I was talking to Camille about some things recently."

"Yeah?"

"She sort of knows."

"Knows what?"

"Camille knows I'm not exactly straight and I...I told her that I still had feelings for someone else, but she was really chill about it."

"Oh shit. Did you tell her it was me?" he asked, his voice almost sounding a bit panicked.

"No, no. I didn't. We talked about sexuality and she brought something up to me about my shows. How I tell people to be themselves all the time but then she's like, well you aren't being yourself. Don't you think that's sort of hypocritical?"

"I guess so, yeah. Where are you going with this?"

"Well, I wrote this song called "Medicine," but I never put it on the album because it sort of implies that I've messed around with guys and I was thinking of playing it on the next leg. I talked it over with Jeff and asked him what he thought and he told me that if this is something I feel like I need to do, then I should do it and we'd see what happens. What do you think?"

"Well it's not like you haven't sort of implied it in the past," Zayn responded, referring to some of those times I let things slip out during One Direction. "But like, this is kind of a big deal now. You basically want to out yourself."

"Well I mean I want to be myself so, yeah. It's not like the song is going on an album. I'm just playing it live."

It sounded like Zayn was not as encouraging as I had hoped he would be and I started to feel a little discouraged.

"Can I hear it?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll send it to you. Then call me back once you have a listen."

Zayn called me back within the next ten minutes and the whole time I was starting to second guess myself.

"So the song is pretty much about how you realized that you like fucking me, basically," Zayn said when we resumed our conversation.

"So...you like it?"